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France begins to dismantle Notre-Dame scaffolding

The scaffolding around the spire of Paris's Notre-Dame cathedral has begun to come down, the authority charged with restoring the monument after a devastating 2019 fire said on Tuesday.

Published: 13 February 2024 12:50 CET

France begins to dismantle Notre-Dame scaffolding

The construction site at Notre-Dame, Paris, photographed on February 12, 2024. Work has now begun to remove the scaffolding from around the spire. Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP

The spire should be entirely visible by the time the Olympic Summer Games open in the French capital on July 26th, it said.

“The dismantling of the scaffolding has started and will continue over the coming months,” the restoration authority, Etablissement Public, told AFP.

The scaffolding reached 100 metres in height, weighed 600 tonnes and contained 70,000 metal parts.

The spire has been covered in lead, a material that has caused much debate because of its potential toxicity.

In December, the cathedral regained its great cross, and got a new golden rooster to replace the old one that was destroyed in the April 15th, 2019 fire.

Initially, President Emmanuel Macron promised the UNESCO-listed building would be fully restored by the time the Games open, but the date has since been pushed back to December this year after restoration work hit several snags.

Authorities have still not determined the cause of the fire, although they believe it was started accidentally.

Annual visitor numbers are expected to rise to 14 million after the cathedral’s reopening, from 12 million before the disaster.

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Taylor Swift fever grips Paris at start of Europe tour

The Eras Tour began its European leg with four dates at the La Defense Arena in Paris and attendance on the first night alone was 45,387, according to her press team.

“I wish I could have toured Europe more. This is a dream crowd,” the 34-year-old megastar told the ecstatic audience.

There were deafening shrieks as images of typewriter sheets indicated that songs off the new album, “The Tortured Poets Department”, were starting late in the show.

Emerging in a lyrics-covered dress, she ran through several of the darker new tracks starting with “But Daddy I Love Him” and including “Fortnight”, a particularly furious rendition of “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” and an elaborate “I Can Do it with a Broken Heart” with a golden-era Hollywood dance routine.

“You were the first crowd to see songs from ‘The Tortured Poets Department’,” she said, before adding: “Or, as I like to call it, ‘Female Rage: the Musical'”.

That was a dream come true for many in the audience.

“I’ve been so excited for so long, I can’t believe it’s actually happening,” said 11-year-old Emma, who had flown in with her mother from New York.

The venue said a fifth of the crowd were from the United States — many attracted by Europe’s rules against charging huge mark-ups on resale tickets that can save Americans thousands of dollars compared with shows at home.

Georg’Ann Daly decided to celebrate her 23rd birthday with the Paris show. It meant flying from Nashville to Chicago to London and catching the Eurostar to Paris.

“I’ve always been obsessed with Taylor Swift,” she told AFP.

A handful of superfans camped out from Tuesday in Paris to ensure they got a prime spot.

“I didn’t plan to, but I came to check it out and I saw the first tents and I panicked a little,” said Chris, 30.

Noah, 20, is seeing all four Paris concerts — he used 22 email addresses to get through the lottery system and secure the tickets

Record-breaker

After France, Swift heads on for dates in Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Poland and Austria.

The Eras Tour has already worked its way across North and South America and Asia since starting in March 2023.

By the end of the year, it had already become the first to sell more than $1 billion in tickets and is on track to more than double that by the time it concludes in Vancouver this December.

Swift’s popularity shows no sign of dimming — the new album shifted 1.4 million copies on its first day and broke every streaming record going, reaching a billion streams on Spotify within five days.

Her tell-all dissections of her love stories have been the fuel powering her global domination, and fans have been poring over “The Tortured Poets Department” for cryptic clues about ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn, her short-but-dramatic fling with Matty Healy (lead singer of The 1975), and her current partner, American football star Travis Kelce.

“Taylor talks about toxic relationships, impossible love, politics, mental health, and so much more,” said Chris as she waited by her tent for the big moment. “I think we can all find a song that resonates with our experiences.”

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